IGT’s new CPTO bet: what Andy Hendrickson’s expanded mandate really changes
- Gaming Eminence
- Jan 13
- 6 min read
IGT has promoted CTO Andy Hendrickson to a new Chief Product & Technology Officer role, subject to regulatory approval. Announced on 13 January 2026, the move comes barely half a year after Apollo closed its $6.3bn gaming deal and a month after Hector Fernandez formally took over as CEO. This is less about a new job title and more about how the world’s most widely licensed gaming supplier intends to run product and technology under private-equity ownership.
What’s actually been announced
IGT’s press release is clear on the basics but light on the detail.
On 13 January 2026, IGT said that Andy Hendrickson “has expanded his role to become Chief Product & Technology Officer (CPTO),” with the change “subject to receipt of all required regulatory approvals.”
Trade coverage from Asia Gaming Brief adds timeline and context: Hendrickson has served as CTO of the combined IGT–Everi enterprise since September 2025, following the merger of IGT’s Digital/Gaming business with Everi in a transaction backed by Apollo Global Management.
The announcement reiterates Hendrickson’s CV:
CTO at Aristocrat for more than four years.
CTO of Activision Publishing, overseeing technology for franchises such as Call of Duty and Crash Bandicoot.
Technology leadership at Walt Disney Animation (Frozen), PDI/DreamWorks (Shrek 2, Madagascar) and Industrial Light & Magic (Forrest Gump, Men in Black and others).
The new piece of information is not that Hendrickson is in the building, that has been known since 2025, but that IGT is explicitly fusing product and technology under one officer.
What is not stated:
Whether this is a board-level role.
Whether the CPTO has direct P&L ownership of any business lines.
Whether existing product, content and platform leaders now report into Hendrickson, or retain parallel authority.
In other words, we know the new title, but we don’t yet know the exact governance map.
What changes operationally
To understand what this role could mean in practice, you have to situate it inside Apollo’s platform bet.
Apollo’s acquisition of the combined IGT Gaming & Digital business and Everi – completed mid-2025 – created a single enterprise supplying slot cabinets, systems, payments/FinTech and digital content under the IGT brand.
The original IGT–Everi merger documentation talked explicitly about:
Leveraging a large installed base of c.70,000 EGMs.
Generating around $2.7bn pro-forma revenue and $1bn adjusted EBITDA.
Delivering around $85m in identified cost savings and capex efficiencies.
Those synergies do not materialise on their own. They come from product and platform decisions:
Which game engines to standardise on.
How to consolidate cabinets and OS variants.
How to integrate loyalty, wallets and payment rails.
How far to unify online and land-based roadmaps.
A CPTO sitting above both product and technology is the lever that makes those choices coherent rather than political.
For operators, the operational impact is likely to show up in:
Fewer, more standardised platforms – potentially reducing integration complexity but increasing dependency on a single vendor stack.
Tighter roadmap gating – game concepts, cabinets and system features passing through a more centralised steering process.
Stronger cross-pollination between land-based, iGaming and payments – if Hendrickson can align content, platform and data teams to build once and deploy many times.
None of this is guaranteed. But it is broadly consistent with how private-equity-backed gaming platforms try to move from “portfolio of products” to “single operating system” – particularly where cost savings have been promised to investors.
Where the regulatory risk sits
The press release emphasises that Hendrickson’s promotion is “subject to receipt of all required regulatory approvals,” but never spells out which approvals those are.
That matters because IGT is one of the most heavily licensed suppliers in the industry:
IGT and affiliates say they hold more than 500 global gaming licences, governed by state, provincial, national, tribal and other gaming agencies.
The group reports operations and regulatory relationships in more than 100 jurisdictions.
In Great Britain alone, multiple IGT entities – including International Game Technology PLC, IGT Malta Casino Ltd, IGT Europe Gaming BV and others – are licensed and regulated by the Gambling Commission.
Several IGT entities hold B2B licences from the Malta Gaming Authority as suppliers of Type 1 casino critical gaming supplies.
Across those regimes, the CPTO sits at the intersection of several regulatory vectors:
Key individual / personal approvals: Many regulators require senior executives with significant influence over gaming systems, RNGs, platforms and risk controls to obtain personal licences or “key individual” approvals. The announcement explicitly acknowledges that Alfred’s expanded role cannot become effective until those unspecified approvals are in place.
Systems integrity and technical standards: Game platforms, cabinets, payment devices and remote gaming systems are tested and certified to technical standards by labs such as GLI and others. As CPTO, Hendrickson becomes the obvious escalation point when issues arise around:
RNG implementation and updates.
Game version control and deployment.
Jackpot and progressive logic.
Remote configuration of cabinets and terminals.
Cybersecurity and incident response: In late 2025, ransomware group Qilin claimed to have exfiltrated around 10GB of IGT data, including some 21,600 files. IGT has not publicly confirmed the breach, but the allegation made headlines.
Even if the CPTO is not the ultimate CISO, regulators now routinely expect clear lines of accountability for cybersecurity across critical gaming infrastructure. A CPTO overseeing technology and product can expect direct questioning from regulators and lotteries about:
Patch cadence and vulnerability management.
Third-party code supply chains.
Segregation of lottery, casino, fintech and B2B data.
Lottery and public-sector contracts: IGT’s earlier court case against the UK Gambling Commission over the National Lottery Fourth Licence demonstrates both the stakes and the scrutiny around lottery technology.
Lottery regulators will want to understand whether product and tech consolidation under one executive impacts resilience, competition and procurement commitments.
A note of scepticism
The announcement uses familiar language around “industry-leading” products and “innovation.” Absent from the text is any concrete description of how the CPTO role will strengthen compliance or reduce risk.
Given the alleged ransomware episode, the breadth of licences, and increasing expectations around responsible gambling tooling and data protection, it is reasonable to ask whether the CPTO’s formal objectives are weighted heavily enough towards resilience and safeguard outcomes, not just content and revenue.
Who wins / who loses
At board and investor level, this is a tidy story: a seasoned technology executive with AAA games and Hollywood experience is given a broader mandate just as Apollo is trying to extract synergies from a complex platform.
But the distribution of benefits – and risks – is uneven.
Who stands to win
Apollo / shareholders: A unified CPTO should, in theory, accelerate platform consolidation, reduce parallel R&D streams and deliver the sort of capex efficiency and opex savings baked into the original deal maths
Fernandez and the executive team: With Hector Fernandez – himself an Aristocrat alumnus – now CEO, having a trusted counterpart with deep knowledge of IGT, Everi and Aristocrat technology stacks reduces integration risk and political friction.
Operators favouring one-throat-to-choke models: Large customers that want fewer vendors may welcome a more unified product and tech structure, particularly for estate-wide roll-outs of cabinets, systems, digital content and payment solutions.
Who may feel more exposed
Operators anxious about vendor concentration: A more centralised IGT may be efficient, but also harder to negotiate with. If Hendrickson succeeds in integrating product, platform and fintech, operators that rely heavily on IGT could find switching costs – technical and commercial – increasing.
Competing suppliers in cabinets, systems and fintech: Consolidation under a credible CPTO with broad media-tech experience makes it easier for IGT to pitch integrated estates: slots + systems + digital + payments. That threatens point-solution vendors, particularly in mid-tier markets.
Internal product teams and regional P&Ls: A strong CPTO can mean sharper prioritisation – which is another way of saying more hard noes to local feature requests, niche game variants or country-specific forks that cannot be amortised globally.
What to watch next
Regulatory filings and approvals: Look for any public indications – from state gaming commissions, the UK Gambling Commission, the MGA or lottery authorities – that Hendrickson has been added as a key individual, director or equivalent. Absence of filings doesn’t mean approvals aren’t in train, but visible notices are a data point.
Internal communications and org charts: Industry contacts will be watching to see whether existing product, content and platform leads retain autonomy or are subsumed into a CPTO-driven structure.
Roadmap signalling at ICE and other shows: ICE Barcelona and subsequent events will be the first chance for IGT to put a “CPTO-era” roadmap on stage. Signals to track:
Consolidation of cabinets and OS lines.
Clearer narrative around omnichannel content and wallets.
Messaging on security and resilience post-Qilin.
Customer advisory structuresDoes IGT stand up a formal customer advisory board for product and technology, chaired or fronted by Hendrickson? That would show whether the CPTO role is outward-facing, not just internal.
Evidence of platform convergence: Material moves – like decommissioning legacy systems, migrating Everi estates to IGT platforms (or vice versa), or unveiling unified content tools – will show whether this is real integration rather than title inflation.
Regulatory commentary and incident disclosures: Any new public commentary by regulators about IGT’s systems, incidents, or fines will be read against the backdrop of the CPTO’s stewardship, fairly or not.
Talent moves: If the CPTO role is substantive, expect some senior departures where portfolios are consolidated, and some senior hires where Hendrickson seeks to import specific expertise (for example, in AI-assisted content, cloud infrastructure, or secure payments).
